


Josie

by fluffybookfaerie



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode: s08e12 As Time Goes By, Episode: s09e17 Mother's Little Helper, Gen, Men of Letters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-31
Updated: 2014-03-31
Packaged: 2018-01-17 16:57:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1395364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fluffybookfaerie/pseuds/fluffybookfaerie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How do you deal with being possessed by a knight of hell when you've lost your faith years ago?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Josie

Josie was sixteen when her mother was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Prayer, for Josie, had been something she and her mother did together, holding hands over grace before dinner, or at night as her mother tucked her into bed. But after her mother received the news, she would pray for Him to take care of her family, to forgive her sins, to show her the right path, to bless Josie of all people, everything except what Josie felt needed the most attention, which was her mother getting better.   
So Josie began to pray alone every night. She prayed when the headaches made her mother weep. She prayed in those moments when her mother stopped acting like her mother, when her sweet mother who had never even raised her voice at Josie slapped her across the face. She prayed the day she asked her mother a question and her mother opened her mouth to respond and found she couldn’t, and the day her mother was no longer able to brush her hair, her beautiful, thick red hair, and Josie had to do it for her.  
The night the doctors told her to prepare for the worst, Josie didn’t sleep, just repeated the same prayer over and over until the words lost meaning, until it stopped being a prayer and became something more than the truth.  
She couldn’t remember when she stopped speaking, only that when they got the call, she and her father, there was utter silence in the room.  
She never prayed again, after that.   
When her father sent her to Catholic school, she informed the headmistress very politely that she was not a good fit for the school because she no longer believed in God.  
It hadn’t gone over well. But there was no point believing in a God who had made her mother a prisoner in her own body, who couldn’t prevent the worst thing that had ever happened in Josie’s life.  
The worst thing that had happened in her life thus far, that is.

As a child, Josie could cling to God, to the hope that an unseen force could make everything work out.  
As an adult, so painfully close to being a Woman of Letters, Josie was certain that Abaddon would break her. She had heard testimonies from survivors of demonic possession, some from within Men of Letters archives, some from people she had met and interviewed herself. She knew she didn’t want to be like them, with their haunted eyes and their tales of the things their bodies had done without their permission. It was worse than being a war survivor, because the war was being waged in your own head.  
And as bad as it was to imagine, it was worse when it was really happening. Josie had always imagined it would be like watching your body’s actions on a television set, that there would be some sort of separation between your consciousness and the actions of your body, but it was through her own eyes that she watched her hands tear apart the people she had worked with, the men who had become her family, as Abaddon made good on her promise to destroy the Men of Letters. The creature was in her brain; it was thoughts from her brain that made the knife in her hand slit the throat of Robert, his blood soaking into the dress she’d worn to her best friend’s wedding, Robert who used to tell the best stories about his work in the field in his younger days. She felt Jack’s life—Jack, who would praise her for her work, admire her ambition, encourage her to move up the ranks—extinguish as she crushed his throat. Richie was there on her first field mission, when she filmed the Men of Letters’ attempt to cure a demon. Will used to pinch her bottom when she walked by, and he would frequently ask her to run for coffee, even when she was busy and he was not, and when her hands wrought havoc upon his eyes, Josie realized she couldn’t separate the demon’s fury from her own. And the demon used not just her body but her, her essential self; for days before the slaughter it imitated her, used the words that she would have said to fool them into believing that they were safe.  
They slaughtered all but two that day, but after all that Josie discovered she had one thing to cling to: it could have been Henry, and it wasn’t. Henry would die, but at the least he wouldn’t have to endure this.  
Henry.  
They had been students together at the University of Chicago. Both Phi Beta Kappa, both more interested in learning than in following any sort of career path. They’d spend hours together in the enormous library, just talking, reading, drunk on all the knowledge they had access to. He’d married his high school sweetheart before she ever even met him, a beautiful, slender woman with dimples and a way with cars. Josie liked Millie, which helped curb the jealousy.  
It was late into their fourth semester when Henry told Josie about the Men of Letters, and all the new dimensions to the world that came with that knowledge. Josie took it all in without flinching, asking, “When can I join?” almost immediately with a grin and a cocked eyebrow, and her eagerness made Henry, studious, serious Henry, laugh out loud.  
They were reluctant to admit a woman, especially one with no legacy to back her, but Henry stood by her, and said that if she couldn’t join, he would leave. They came to appreciate her on her own merits, but she owed so much to him. The Men of Letters was the best cause she could ever have found. She poured her soul into her work there, furthering the world’s knowledge of the unknown, protecting it from what it wasn’t ready to know.  
She never got to complete the initiation. Her body did, but that was just another thing Abaddon stole from her.  
Henry finished just after her, grinning broadly, his cheeks flushed with victory, and Josie could sense what Abaddon was going to do a moment before she did it, and she resisted, pulling back with all her stubborn mulishness, but what was the humiliation of rejection when she knew what Abaddon had planned for the next day?  
They both kissed Henry.  
He was warm and just slightly damp with sweat and so beautifully alive that Josie couldn’t imagine him any differently. And Josie kicked and screamed against Abaddon’s control because he was kissing a demon, because he had to get out, he had to live, she wanted him to smile like that again.  
She didn’t break through. Of course she didn’t. For the first time in her life, it didn’t matter how hard she worked because she was destined to fail. Henry pushed her gently but firmly away, and reminded her that he was married, that he had a child. And the stupid boy apologized. He was sorry if he’d done anything to make her believe otherwise.  
And even though it wasn’t her that kissed him, even though she’d seen it coming, even though it was nothing in the grand scheme of things, it hurt, and even worse, Abaddon whispered in her ear with a voice more suited to animalistic screams that it didn’t matter that Henry wouldn’t die knowing he’d been unfaithful to his wife, he’d still die.  
He turned to make his way back to his happy home, and Josie fell limp inside the prison of her body.  
And then swiftly, almost stiffly as if he was holding his breath, he turned back around and with a kiss of his thumb brushed the fragile skin under her right eye, hand a hair away from cradling her cheek.   
“There was an eyelash,” he said with a small smile. And then he took a deep breath. “God help me, Josie,” he whispered. “I wish I’d met you first.” And he left.  
And it wouldn’t matter tomorrow, it wouldn’t even matter when the full gravity of the situation hit her, but for one second, that wistful smile, that gentle touch, and the retroactive promise were all that mattered. That was the second thing she had to cling to.  
Killing Henry was the worst part. He had escaped the day of the slaughter, fled into a whole other time, and she had let herself believe that he could really get away. Abaddon followed him into the future, though. Josie gave it every last bit of strength she had to stay Abaddon’s hand, she made promises and screamed threats, but it was useless. Abaddon had a mission, and this was a minor obstacle that needed to be dealt with.  
If she had been in control of her body, afterwards, she would certainly have cried. She could hardly stop crying when she lost her mother. She might have vomited, too, or taken a shower, or perhaps she would have burned the clothes she was wearing. She would have done something to purge herself of the horror, but she couldn’t. The memory of Henry’s face, her helplessness, the way his flesh had given way under the knife, and her agony mixed with Abaddon’s savage joy were branded on her.   
In the weeks following her mother’s death, there would be short moments, like just after waking up, when she could forget that her mother was dead, and feel at ease. The moments made it all the worse to remember her grief, but they helped her push through it. There was none of that, now. After Henry’s grandsons cut Abaddon’s body apart and buried it, Josie had no sleep, no physical sensations, nothing to distract her from the reality of being trapped alone with Abaddon. And the demon kept playing the memory, over and over again, feeding off Josie’s pain.  
But at least.  
At least Henry’s grandsons lived. At least Henry had been able to pass on the key before he died. And Magnus hadn’t been there the day of the slaughter either. Abaddon could kill off all the members, but there was hope for their legacy. That was something real, realer than religion, even, to cling to. And though it felt like an eternity they spent together, fractured, buried, not allowed to die, it ended.  
Soon enough, Henry’s grandsons destroyed her body with

holy fire.

And it burns hot.

Abaddon screaming

josie laughs

her laugh

beautiful

flames swaddle

hell would be cold

so hot

heaven 

is


End file.
